About the museum

Vilhelmina museum is located in the old "Sockenstugan" from the 1890's. The building was built after the blueprints of P A Edman, a woodcarver, and is supposedly one of the most well preserved houses of this type in the county of Västerbotten. During the first 50 years, the building served as a meeting place, municipal building, school, teachers' living quarters and boarding school. The building was also used for weddings and other types of celebrations.

Sockenstugan, Vilhelmina museum
Sockenstugan. Foto: Laila Eliasson

In 1942 the local heritage society collected a great number of old household objects and these objects later became the foundation of a permanent museum in the sockenstugan, which was inaugurated in 1943. The current exhibition show the history of the municipality of Vilhelmina from prehistoric times to present time with the main focus on the self sufficient households of the settlers and the Sami.

In the collections

Worth mentioning among the many prehistoric objects in the museum's collections is a nearly 2000 year old wooden ski and some glass beads from the 8th century. In the museum's storage and archives are also many valuable documents, photographs and objects that are currently being digitalised and made available on our web site. If you are interested in looking more closely at our collections or do research using our old documents, you are welcome to visit us. Our offices are located on the second floor of the court house at the center of Vilhelmina. Our office hours are 8 am - 5 pm.

The museum is also responsible for: